Lunar Rising
Charlotte- Tunneling

There’s a moment of silence after all of us finish reading the last words.

“What suspicious behavior?” John asks.

Raven takes a deep breath. “I have a hobby. I like to build things. My friend, Neil, who you also met that night, is also an inventor. He and I have worked together on several projects, most of which are mainly just for fun, but this one is the most serious one that we’ve had so far.

“This invention, which we’ve named Riaddne, can save the world in many ways. I’ve been working on it for a while, but it’s an illegal invention using a certain kind of dark energy to produce electricity and plasma power.”

John raises an eyebrow. “Your parents work for the government, I assume?”

“Precisely,” I cut in. “And they can’t know about it. But I guess Raven let his guard down sometime and they saw him act weird. Maybe he snuck out late at night to work on it, or he asked to borrow a tool, or a small amount of supplies.”

Raven shakes his head. “I don’t know how my dad knows about this.”

“What are you going to say to him? He’s going to ask you questions as soon as you go back.”

“He’s my father…maybe I’ll just tell him the truth.”

I laugh and laugh, and I can’t stop. Then I pause and look up at him again, and I realize he’s being serious. Raven can be so clueless sometimes.

“Raven,” I say gently. “These days, when will telling the truth help with anything? People have lied more and more over the years. Lies are what keeps this world running. You won’t gain anything by telling the truth, but rather, you’ll replace yourself in a situation where you’ll lose everything.”

Raven sighs and flops into the couch, letting himself sink slowly into the cushions. He looks so sad. Part of me regrets having told him about how the world was made up of lies. “Hey,” I murmur, leaving the computer and sitting next to him. “If it makes you feel better, not everything I’ve told you are lies. I’ve been mostly genuine with you.”

“Yeah?” He looks skeptical at the thought.

“Well, sure, I lied about my name, and then I lied about my past, and I’m sure I may have lied a few other non-significant times, but overall I’ve been truthful to you.” I lower my voice. “I’m not truthful to many people, since my life was never any easier if I told the truth. But you’re my first real friend, Raven. When I say this, I say it in earnest. Thank you.”

Raven turns his head to face me. My breath barely manages to escape from my lips. I don’t know this fervid feeling, and this isn’t the first time it’s appeared, but it is certainly the most intense. My thoughts turn into eels and wriggle away from my grasp. All I can see is Raven as he smiles at me in a way that makes my insides jump.

“I’ve always been truthful to you, Charlotte. And I think…I think that it’s because of truth that I was able to befriend you. How do two people with lies become friends? Nature doesn’t let that happen often. Charlotte, listen to me.” I purse my lips and force myself to be open to his opinions. “The truth will get you much farther than lies will.”

I’m prepared to disprove him, but I stop myself. “In respect for your values, Raven, I won’t argue. But you and I think differently.”

Raven shrugs. “One day, we’ll see who’s right.” He pauses, biting his lip. “Fine. I won’t tell my dad anything for now. If he asks me, I’ll say everything I borrowed from him was for Neil’s experiments.”

It’s December 8th. As the months passed, Raven and I continued to search for the hidden lab, but to no avail. According to Grandfather and Aiden, the government hasn’t shown any signs of replaceing the lab either. I can’t imagine what might be lost if the government beats us to the lab.

John, Raven, and I spend more time together as the search continues for the lab. Finally, last month, Raven and I decided to tell him the general goal of our mission to replace something hidden. We’ve included him in our work precisely because he has the freedom to replace information while Raven and I are limited by my identity and his family.

John landed a new job after he lost his band occupation, and he sent Raven and me a text saying to meet up with him today.

The air is tense as Raven, John, and I walk down the smooth walkways of the city.

The lights around us are dimmed as pale sunlight streams in through the tall glass walls of the perimeter of the city. The outer dome keeps out all harmful rays, but we still get some natural light. I’m wearing a skimpy top under a sweater and jeans. John insisted on us dressing like normal people with an ounce of fashion sense. He has his own hair slicked back smooth with his longer locks of hair curled. It’s probably another one of those strange modern-hairstyles that I never get. Most people these days either crop their hair off short or leave it long, but only famous pop stars do both at the same time and still manage to pull it off.

I humor myself by thinking that John is decorated this way because he fancies himself something like a pop star.

Raven looks so silly, I can’t even stare at him long enough without cracking up.

With painted streaks on his face and part of his head dyed a temporary blue, he looks like a crazed businessman. He’s wearing somewhat formal clothing, which throws his look off in the way that people like these days, and his suit is one of a soft, flexible kind, with a jacket made of smooth, soft cloth, completely one color: dark gray.

My brown hair isn’t much better than Raven’s new hair either. I have temporary pink stripes blaring through the middle of my head; the reddish outline blends into the brown, exposing the cheap quality of the spray we bought. It’s definitely following the whole “crazy look” trend that’s been happening this past decade.

Finally, our costumes come to use. Not only do we blend in with the crowds perfectly, we also manage to get past the police. I see the policeman heading towards us first, and I nudge John and Raven to get their attention. He looks us up and down. I quickly pretend to be flirting with Raven, and John cuts in with sarcastic comments. It’s enough to assure the police that we are normal, silly teens, and he doesn’t stop to check to see that among this group, there is a lawbreaker that got off with a warning, a girl who ran away from the government, and a boy who’s behind an illegal invention.

As we walk away, putting more and more distance between us and the policeman, John explains to us what he’s found.

“Okay, so I was working at my job, yeah?” says John. “You know, serving people coffee and drinks. All I really had to do was stand behind the counter and give people their morning coffee, and my shift would’ve ended later until I heard what this guy was saying.

“He said that he needed to oversee something that got messed up and he needs his coffee first, before the other customers. There were some protests in the line of people behind him, but I had to take his order, prepare it the special way he wanted it, and serve it to him before he could let any other customer order.

“After he got it, he left out the door, muttering under his breath. My shift still had half an hour to go, but I didn’t feel like I needed to stay. I passed off my job to the other guy working with me and I told him I’d be right back; I needed to go somewhere real quick.

“I followed the man with the temper and he and I walked all through the city until he came to the door that leads outside. I thought he’d actually go out there, so here I was about to stop and turn back, but instead, he took a remote from his pocket, clicked a button to disable alarms and invisible fences, and walked past two signs saying: ‘Construction Zone. Do not use portal.’ Then he used the portal.

“Now, see here, this wasn’t any ordinary construction zone. And I don’t really know how I got out of there, but you need to see this. I think… I think they’re doing something in there that’s related to what you guys are looking for.”

Last month, I had mentioned that we were looking for something hidden beneath Tylius. I’m glad that I’d brought that up before. Whatever John has found, he wouldn’t be wasting our time showing us it if it isn’t important.

We stop in front of the two signs that John had described. Behind the signs, there is a portal. It’s deactivated at the moment, which is good news for us, meaning that nobody is inside.

“Well, how do we cross the invisible fence?” Raven asks. None of us can see it, but as I step closer, I can feel bands of energy intertwining between the two signs. My skin tingles a bit.

“Scramblers,” I say, pulling out a slim, homemade metallic device from my pocket. I kneel down and thrust the object forward. I feel the vibrations running through my hands as the scrambler mixes up the energy barrier.

“Go, now!” I hold the scrambler in place as Raven and John quickly step forward. After they cross, I lift the device away and jump quickly.

I don’t jump as fast as I would have liked.

The shock of energy is weakened, but the impact of tearing through a fence of electricity is enough to bring me to my knees. Raven leaps to my side and pulls me up. My vision swims in flashes of darkness and hot light.

“Charlotte!” he cries, throwing all protocol into the trash. “Charlotte, can you hear me?”

“I’m fine, Raven,” I gasp, pushing him away and stumbling to my feet. I’ve only been shocked from invisible fences once in my lifetime, and the force of it had knocked me out. I’m glad this one didn’t. “Let’s keep going. We can’t linger here. People will stare.”

But this side of the city is another of the less occupied areas. I know that, and so do John and Raven. The real reason, unspoken but known, is that I don’t want to look weak for so long. We have to keep moving.

John grips the iron handle of a giant switch on a panel. With the help of Raven, the two boys heave the switch up as I catch the rest of my breath.

The edges of the portal sizzle to life. Glowing with a pulsing purple energy, the portal looks as though it’s a bowl of swirling soup hanging sideways. The pull of the powerful current of space draws us closer.

“I’ll go first,” John volunteers. “I have an idea of what it looks like on the other side. When you get out, try not to ram into me.”

John takes a deep breath and steps forward into the portal. The liquid-like purple substance swallows his figure until there is nothing but a ripple in the portal to show that he was there.

“Can you go on your own, Charlotte?”

“Yeah, I’ll be fine.”

I stretch my stiffened legs and glide into the portal. The warm energy, smooth, unbroken, clean, helps me melt into the subspace between this portal and the connecting end. I make sure not to open my eyes. My breath is held steadily. Even though I know the ground beneath me is gone, I feel almost no difference. In fact, the only major difference is that I cannot feel a thing. There is no gravity, no forces… just my being, floating through the portal space at speeds unknown, through colors unseen…

Then my feet touch rough, dusty ground. The scraping of my shoes against dirt snaps me out of my stupor.

I stride out of the portal confidently, if a little unsteadily, and open my eyes.

I’m in a tunnel.

The walls are coated with gleaming coverings, thick and rubbery. I walk to the wall and run a hand down the material. Definitely like rubber. This is what keeps the tunnel from collapsing. The tunnel is at least eighty feet tall and wide. It’s huge and feels like a dirt streetway rather than a tunnel. Etched into the pale floor are wheel tracks. The tracks are as wide as a person laying down. My eyes follow the tracks down to the edge of the light. Despite the particles of light trapped in the rubber walls, the tunnel is still dim, and if one were to gaze down on direction for too long, the lights from the tunnel lining and the distance that it stretches out would drive the person insane. It feels like looking into a kaleidoscope with only two colors, and towards the center of it, the colors blend in a way that makes your eyes hurt.

John is already exploring. He walks ahead of me, examining our surroundings. Behind me, I hear a thump and a soft “OOF!” as Raven tumbles out of the portal.

“Rough flight,” he grumbles, brushing dust off his suit.

“What is this place?” I ask John as he starts to walk back to us.

“When I came here before, there was a huge drill not far from here. But now when I walk down there,” he says, pointing into the dizzying tunnel, “I can’t see the drill anymore. They must’ve let it keep drilling quite a lot farther in. Let’s go.”

One thought pecks the back of my head, demanding attention. What about the portal? We should shut it off. But I push the thoughts away as new thoughts fill my head at the sight of this tunnel.

Raven helps me walk even though I can tell he hurt his arm a bit from the uneven landing. When I tell him that I can walk on my own, he blushes, letting go of me, and I walk briskly side by side with John.

“They’re drilling for something here,” says John in a hushed whisper. “I don’t know for what, but it’s clear that it can’t be for any natural resources. Tylius, being a man-made planet, can’t have anything down here that we’d be able to use. That’s just common sense, right? So, I have no clue what they could need to drill for. It’s not for infrastructure; the way they drill and coat the walls makes that quite clear.”

I cast a knowing glance at Raven. The lab.

We continue in quiet reclusion. The chilly air has an eerie ring to it, as if the silence is screaming. Under my sweater, I’m shivering. The feeling of the darkness waiting on the border of the dim lights in the tunnel is unsettling.

“There it is,” breathes Raven, gesturing at the largest drill I’ve ever seen in my life.

On a giant set of conveyer wheels, the drill is the same size as the tunnel. Eighty feet tall and eighty feet wide, enormous and bulky. John inspects the driver’s seat and climbs in from the metal ladder hanging from the side.

“How does this look, guys?” he jokes with a grin. “I feel so tall up here!”

“That’s nice,” says Raven absentmindedly, poking at the huge conveyer wheels.

I step around the drill and inspect the actual drill part of the machine. The sharp end looks as though it could impale anyone that bumped into it. The white dirt that the drill is pressed against looks a bit unsteady, since the rubber lining has not been applied there yet. I back away from the drill.

We spend a few more minutes checking out the drill. Then I notice something on the ground that both Raven and John have missed.

Using my foot, I gently tap on the part of the floor where the rubber coating looks loosely done. The bits of glowing rubber flake away. I use my foot to push aside the rest of the rubber flakes until that part of the floor is rubber-free.

The dirt here looks different than the other areas of dirt. It’s not as pale as the others. I bend down to look at it closely, and I can tell that the darker spots between patches of dirt are empty notches of air in between. This part of the ground is loosely packed, and there’s a hollow space underneath the dirt.

Turning away from the flying dust, I sweep the dirt aside, hoping to see what caused the hollow underneath the white sand-like soil.

Big mistake.

My feet slip from under me and slide into a hole that I didn’t know was there. Before I can make a sound, the ground swallows me in one gulp and more dirt tumbles in after me.

Falling. My heart jumps to my throat and my stomach lurches. I shut my eyes so that the dust won’t get in them. Falling, towards the darkness below, towards an uncertain fate.